Yates says cop cuts will put UK at risk
(Guardian): A senior government minister has angrily attacked Britain’s top counterterrorism officer for warning that government cuts to the police would put the country at greater risk of an al-Qaida attack. Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude said public servants had to be "damn sure" they had cut out waste, warned they should avoid shroud waving and claims of dire consequences that would alarm the public. He was reacting to claims from John Yates Scotland Yard’s head of counterterrorism, that "eyewatering" cuts of £150m to the budget to fight violent extremism would endanger the public.
Yates, (who was originally the officer with overall control of Operation Tempura in the Cayman Islands) was speaking to a private session of top officers and police authorities at the Association of Chief Police Officers’ conference. Details of his remarks were first leaked to the Times. More details emerged that Yates had said the cuts would mean that the public and government would have to "accept a higher level of risk" of a terrorist attack.
Category: World News
Ironic, isn’t it? The guy who master-minded Operations Tempura/Cealt, and is now in charge of a department that wasted a large amount of public money using anti-terrorist officers to arrest Damien Green MP for doing his job, bleating because his budget is being cut!
One source says that this will kill off plans to issue ‘heavy weapons’ to the Met’s anti-terrorist teams and make it likely that specialist military teams (SAS) are employed to cover any gaps in firepower. It will probably also put more onus on MI5 to do much of the work, which is why Yates is bleating. There’s no danger to public safety, this is police politics because it will put a cap on the Met’s autonomy and force them to cooperate with other agencies – something they hate to do.